


A New Home

by Vanillybean



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid
Genre: Domestic, Everything's Fine, F/M, Gen, Other, Paulkins - Freeform, hannah's like 6, he w a l k e d, lexthan, no one dies, paul and emma show up later i promise, really soft, soft, they made it to california
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanillybean/pseuds/Vanillybean
Summary: Lex, Ethan and Hannah make it to California, and now they're trying to live the life they always dreamed about.This is gonna be a multi-chapter really domestic soft fic i promise
Relationships: Hannah Foster & Ethan Green, Hannah Foster & Lex Foster, Lex Foster & Ethan Green, Lex Foster/Ethan Green, Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 40
Kudos: 56





	1. Journey to California

Ethan tossed the last of the suitcases into the back of Lex’s beat-up Volkswagen and carefully closed the trunk. Granted, there weren’t many, but it didn’t matter. Soon they would be in California, finally away from that godforsaken town of Hatchetfield, free to live the life they always dreamed about.

He came around to the passenger side of the car and buckled in, smiling at Lex who was already in the driver’s seat.

“All good back there, banana?” he called, turning to face the backseat. A small thumbs-up and an ecstatic grin from Hannah gave him the answer he needed. Leaving her home at the break of dawn to travel across the country shouldn’t have been as exciting as it was for a child, but Hannah knew things were gonna be better and Ethan couldn’t have been more proud of her.

“Ok Ethan, can I use your phone as the GPS? I have some listings pulled up on mine already and I don’t wanna waste time.” He gladly set his phone on the dash for her to use, and pulled hers up to his face.

“Wow,” he chuckled, “a lot of options here.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Lex grumbled, pulling out of that trashy, trailer park driveway she used to call home. “I got in touch with the owner of each of those listings, by the way. I thought it would make things easier for us later, but I didn’t really look through the specifics.” She braked softly before pulling out of view, to look back at her mom’s trailer one last time. It looked pretty much the same as always, but Lex’s face twisted in disgust when she saw through a parted curtain, the silhouette of her mom with a bottle of liquor in her hand. No, she wouldn’t miss this place at all.

~

A few hours outside of town, and many apartment deliberations later, Ethan’s interest was piqued by one listing in particular. “Hey. hey, this one’s pretty nice. 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, only 1.4k a month.”

“Damn, that’s awesome. What’s the catch, why’s it so cheap?”

“Uh, I don’t think there is one?” he scrolled a little further down the page. “Wait. Lexie, this part of town is super dangerous. And it’s really close to a prison. Nope nope nope.” He decisively closed the tab. “Let’s just keep looking.”

Ethan read Lex some of the details to a few other apartments, all lacking in one area or another. If they were in the price range, they were missing crucial features. If they seemed perfect, they were upwards of 4k a month. Definitely not an option.

Lex finally groaned and smacked the back of her head against her seat. “God, it’s all too expensive! What if we never find somewhere? What if it’s just not in the cards for us, huh? What are we supposed to do, go back to fucking Hatchetfield? Come back into town, the kids who ran away, and face everyone, let them know we failed? God,” she tightened her grip on the steering wheel, holding her breath to try and keep from crying in front of Hannah even though she was asleep by now anyway, when she felt a warm hand gently rest on her thigh.

Ethan looked up at her with soft certainty in his eyes. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. There’s a lot of places in California, so what if we haven’t found ours yet? We will, I promise you.” He took Lex’s hand that she now dropped from the wheel and held it tight in his. “We’ll get jobs, we’ll have money, it’s gonna be okay. There’s a lot of people like us, and they made it. We will too.”

Lex nodded silently when a small voice piped up from the backseat. “Lexie?”

“Banana? What’s wrong, are you okay?” A million thoughts raced through her mind in a matter of seconds. Did Hannah hear what she said? Is she worried now too? 

“I’m fine, just hungry.” Oh. Okay, well, that could be fixed.

Lex smiled and lightly chuckled. “Ok! I think I saw a sign for a IHOP a little bit ago, how does that sound?”

“Perfect!”

After a few minutes of billboard searching, Lex pulled into the IHOP parking lot. Ethan helped Hannah out of the car and they all entered the diner.

~

Ethan sat across from Lex, with Hannah close by her side on the inside of the booth. Lex had tied her hair back out of the way to get a better look at what Hannah was doing on the coloring page. She recognized the familiar eight-legged shape she was outlining and passed her a pencil she had in her backpack - it might work better for more precise details than a red crayon. Ethan just beamed at them. He loved seeing his girls so content, side by side, even if they were both the sleepiest they’d ever been.

Hannah was excited to eat waffles, her favorite, and it made her sister’s heart almost burst to see her smiling so hard. Ethan ordered chocolate chip pancakes, which Lex kind of expected but still tried (and failed) to keep from laughing. Lex ended up going with eggs and bacon, a classic. She liked IHOP eggs because they were fluffy and salty and she wasn’t going to pass that up. They were waiting for their food to come when Lex’s phone dinged. She pulled it out to check and her eyes widened.

“Ethan! It’s an email back from one of the apartment owners!” her eyes scanned the email quickly, growing more wild with every word. “They lowered the price because the last person had some kind of anger issues and damaged the floor, it’s not important. It’s 2 bed, 2 bath, 2.3k and right on the beach. He wants to meet with us.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No! Look.” she shoved her phone at him. Sure enough, the message said plain and clear that he wanted to set up a time to meet. “Maybe we can just call him?”

“I’ll talk to him in the car and sort things out,” Ethan said. “For now, let’s relax.”

~

“Lexie come on, take it.” Ethan was trying to get Lex to take his last pancake, he’d decided that he wasn’t gonna be hungry for it when Lex got her food and it was a lot less than she’d expected it to be.

“Ethan, really, I’m not even that hungry. I’m too excited to eat, really.” But she sighed and took a few bites of the chocolate chip abomination when Ethan just wasn’t giving up. She was on the last bite when their waiter came up to the table. Ethan and Lex didn’t like the guy, something about his facial hair or maybe the look in his eyes set off alarm bells for both of them.

“Whoa, miss. Be careful, a pretty girl like you should watch her figure. It’d be a shame to let that go to waste.” He clicked his tongue at Lex and her jaw fell open. She was about to fire back when she saw Ethan across the table.

He felt the tips of his ears turn red, a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach growing stronger and stronger and spreading out to his fingers. He would’ve cussed the bastard out right then and there if it weren’t for Hannah, back to coloring in her spider and blissfully unaware of the situation unfolding in front of her. Instead he caught the waiter’s eye, looked directly into them, and spoke with a tone that matched the feeling of the intense cold you get at first when touching something extremely scalding.

“Hey pal, do you really think you can talk to someone like that and get away with it? My girlfriend is gonna do whatever she wants, as long as she doesn’t have to be an adult to do it. Because she’s seventeen. That’s right, a minor. And you’re, what, thirty? How about you glue your lips shut until you can learn how to talk to women.” He slapped $30 on the table, certainly enough to cover the bill, and stood up. Lex and Hannah followed, Lex wrapping her arm around her sister’s shoulders, Ethan wrapping his around Lex’s. They all left the restaurant together, thank god they weren’t coming back.

“What a fucking creep!” Lex hissed, climbing back into the driver’s seat. 

“I was this close to beating him up, Lexie, and you know what? I should’ve.”

“Yeah!” Hannah said from the backseat, still not totally understanding what happened. “Screw that guy.”

Ethan gave her a fistbump from behind. “I’m gonna call that guy and work things out.”

~

Three days, many hours and a few broken speed limits later, The three arrived in Los Angeles. It was nearly 10 o’clock at night, and after sleeping in a car for 3 days, Lex and Ethan decided they would book a hotel for a couple days.

Hannah loved the hotel. Getting to go to the sixth floor, seeing people in those fancy white uniforms, the clean smell all around her. The cool air in the hallway and the plush red carpets were such a change from the concrete floored trailer, hot in the summer and cold in the winter, no air conditioning or heating. This was nice.

The room had two beds, one for Lex and Ethan and one for Hannah, who was of course excited to have a bed this big to herself. As delighted as she was to be able to crawl into the cool, puffy sheets, something else caught her eye. She crossed the room and opened the curtain, gasping.

“Lexie! The pool! Can we go?”

Lex slung her arm from behind Hannah to in front of her chest, leaning her chin on her head. “Is it still open, banana?”

“I see some people.”

“We did bring swimsuits, Lexie,” Ethan chimed in, holding up his own.

“...Okay let’s go!”

~

Hannah was right about the pool being open. When they got down there, there were 2 adults in the hot tub, laughing and talking about something, it wasn’t important to her. All she wanted to do was play some pool games.

Lex was the first to get in the water. Since the only people here were in the hot tub, not the pool, she had no gauge of how cold the water was. She gingerly dipped her toe in. Oh, it wasn’t that bad. But Ethan didn’t know that.

She yanked her toe from the water. “Ah, shit! That’s so cold!” She knew he was such a baby about these things, and her suspicions were only confirmed when the look of horror crossed his face.

“Really?”

“Really. But, I’m willing to make you a deal. If I jump in, from the side, into this freezing water, then you...you have to play Marco Polo with me and Hannah.” She knew Ethan hated that game, but Hannah had always wanted to play it, and this way she could mess with him a little bit.

“Deal.”

“Cool.” Lex took a running start and leaped from the stone lined rim into the deep end, plunging herself under the crystally waters and feeling almost weightless. She came up for a breath and slicked her hair back. Ethan was just staring at her.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s play.”

~

After a few rounds of Marco Polo and Ethan realizing he’d been tricked, it was time to go to sleep. They made their way back to their hotel room with towels cloaked snugly around each of them. Ethan sleepily pushed the door open and they stumbled inside.

After a quick change into pajamas and some hasty teeth brushing, Lex tucked Hannah into her bed. She made sure she would be sufficiently warm before leaning down and placing a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Goodnight, banana.”

She turned to the other bed, the one Ethan was already in, and crawled underneath the covers. He immediately scooted closer to her, one arm under her and the other wrapped around. Lex nuzzled her head into his neck and fell asleep with a light smile playing on her lips.

Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think!! I’ve got the next 5 or so chapters planned so it’ll be fun :)


	2. A Day In LA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they've got the hotel booked for one more night, so it's time to have a fun day exploring LA!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never been to LA, so you're gonna see some stuff and be like, oh they have that? and the answer's no, but we pretend.

Lex opened her eyes and was immediately greeted by the sun coming in from the obscenely large hotel window. The bed was otherwise empty, and she heard water shut off, so Ethan was probably finished in the shower. She turned on her side to face her sister. There was a Hannah-sized lump under the covers, not even a strand of hair peeking out. Lex groggily slipped out from her own covers and made her way to Hannah’s bed.

Gently tapping the lump, she cooed cheerily “Hannah, time to get up!”

Hannah groaned and squirmed under the covers. Lex felt around before slowly pulling the blankets off her, making Hannah squint at the bright light flooding the room. She mumbled something Lex couldn’t quite hear, then finally looked at her sister and smiled. “Lexie!”

“Hi, banana! We made it!” she took a seat on the bed, careful to avoid squishing Hannah’s feet. “We have another day here at the hotel before we need to move into the apartment. What do you want to do?”

Hannah thought for a bit. “Something fun,” she grumbled, rubbing her eyes and still not totally thinking clearly.

Ethan came out of the bathroom, hair sopping wet and dressed in jeans and what was probably a pajama shirt, to see the two girls on the bed. “Scheming something without me?” he teased.

“Actually yeah. Anything you wanna do today, babe?”

“Uhh, I wanna eat something. Maybe some sightseeing? The lights are gonna be pretty at night but it’s only 8am right now.” He quickly kissed Lex’s cheek and gave Hannah’s legs a quick pat before joining them on the mattress.

“Alright,” Lex stood up. “Let’s just look around! We can go for a drive, get some food, see if there’s any places to visit. A day in LA! Come on.”

~

After some stellar persuasion from Ethan, Hannah finally dragged herself out of bed and they were all able to pile into the car. Lex started driving down the street, fast enough to keep up with traffic but slow enough that Hannah could see things if she wanted to.

A couple of times, Hannah would ‘ooh’ or ‘ah’ at a neat building or monument and Ethan would secretly take a picture of it, maybe to put it in a scrapbook, maybe to show it to her later. There was one particular sight that caught her eye, something too vast and obvious that Hannah would kick herself if she didn’t speak up about it.

“Lexie look! The beach!”

Lex glanced out the window at the west coast. It was almost calling to her, compelling her to go to it. Something about the waves and the sand, and how the sky met the water so neatly…

“You wanna go, banana?”

“Yes!”

Ethan nodded enthusiastically at her too, so Lex pulled into the parking lot closest to the beach.

~

They didn’t think to bring swimsuits, but only Hannah wanted to go into the ocean and she was wearing shorts. After a warning from Lex to watch for jellyfish and to not go too far, she stepped into the ocean for the first time, letting the water wash over her toes, pulling the sand out from under it. She didn’t go too far in, but it was magic.

Ethan and Lex found a wood picnic table nearby and took a seat. Lex watched fondly as Hannah waded knee deep in the water, occasionally giggling at herself as seaweed tickled her ankles. Confident that she couldn’t hear, Lex told Ethan about a plan she had for the day that she knew Hannah would love. It involved her favorite thing: dinosaurs. She stopped talking when Hannah ran up to their table.

“Hey banana, is something wrong?”

Hannah shook her head and took a seat between her sister and Ethan, leaning her head on the table. “Just hungry. But I had fun.”

Ethan ruffled Hannah’s hair, now excited himself for what he’d been looking forward to. “Lunch!”

“It’s more breakfast time,” Lex chided. “We shouldn’t eat lunch food at,” she looked at her watch, “10 in the morning.”

“Brunch then?”

“Ethan, mark my words. We will never be brunch people.”

~

After some debate over where to eat, they finally settled on Olive Garden, a classic. Hannah was frowning at her menu, clearly a bit distressed at how much was happening on the page. They’d forgotten to bring a kid’s one so she’d been sharing it with Ethan, but it was just too much. Lex looked up over her own menu at her.

“Hannah, you don’t have to mess with that one. I’m sure they have a different kind. Is there something in mind that you want?”

“I don’t know. Kind of. Am I allowed to have mac and cheese?” she felt bad about getting something so boring and common.

“Of course!” she saw their waitress and waved her over. “Hi, um, we were wondering if you have mac and cheese? We figured it’d be on the kid’s menu but we wanted to make sure.”

The waitress took out her notebook. “Certainly! Are you all ready to order?”

~

Nearing the end of their meal, which Lex was a little salty about for eating lunch at 10 am, she reached over the table to get Hannah’s attention. Hannah looked up from her last bites of mac and cheese.

“Ethan and I have a surprise for you, banana.” She took another bite of breadstick. “We thought it’d be fun to visit the natural history museum, how’s that sound?”

Hannah broke into a wide grin. “Yes! Yes yes!” she’d always loved dinosaurs, but she’d only ever seen them in pictures. Now she was about to see actual fossils in person? It’s too good to be true!

~

Pulling up outside of the Natural History Museum was an experience for Hannah. The whole thing was white and high up and had big columns out front. She thought it looked like some kind of palace. Actually going inside was even more surreal.

The place was huge. After getting the tickets, the first thing they did was look at the giant t-rex fossil. It was enormous! Hannah knew they were big, of course, just not that big! Lex tapped her on the shoulder, pointing to the ceiling. Hannah audibly gasped.

A pterodactyl hung tauntingly above them, seeming to fly, keeping a watchful eye over the museum.

The next scene they came upon was one where two dinosaurs were staged to look like they were mid-fight, claws out, ready to strike. Lex read the sign aloud, “‘Velociraptors.’ Raptors! You love those, Hannah!” Hannah smiled at her favorite dinosaurs, taking it all in.

Ethan’s favorite was the aquatic dinosaurs. “Look Lexie, the elasmosaurus looks like Nessie!” He pointed to a long-necked dinosaur, gigantic, almost spanning the room. The water fossils that were epitomized in limestone were also strangely enchanting to him.

Lex’s personal favorite were the mammals. The wooly mammoths were so graceful and ethereal. The fossil of a 40 million year old bat was the most interesting, who knew how small it was!

Most of the day was spent at the museum, and even though everyone was enjoying it, even Hannah started to get sleepy once it hit 9pm. They were almost about to leave when Ethan jumped back. “Wait!” he backed through an archway, disappearing. “Stay there, okay?”

He came back out nearly 10 minutes later with a small brown paper bag. “What took so long?” Lex asked him, stifling a yawn.

Ethan grinned mischievously and pulled out a stuffed dinosaur. “For Hannah banana.”

Hannah was leaning against her sister with her eyes shut, but opened them at the mention of her name. She reached out to hold the plushie. “Me?”

“You! It’s a raptor, I didn’t want to leave without getting you one,” he said, handing it to her. He reached into the bag one more time and pulled out a purple gem, presenting it to Lex. “and this one’s for you! I don’t know what it is, but it’s pretty so I thought of you.”

Lex’s heart fluttered. “Oh my god, it’s beautiful,” she pulled him in for a kiss and shoved the stone in her pocket. “Thank you, Ethan.”

“Yeah of course! Banana, how do you like it?” he turned to Hannah but his question was answered when she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his torso, still clutching the yellow dinosaur in her small hand.

He patted her shoulder and smiled. When he saw she wasn’t letting go, he asked her “you tired, Hannah?”

She nodded, still not unwrapping her arms. Ethan readjusted himself so he could grab around Hannah’s waist, and lifted her into the air. Once she was secure on his hip, she tucked her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Hannah woke up at some point in the car, but kept quiet listening to Lex and Ethan talk to each other. She closed her eyes once more in the backseat, rubbing her thumb over the soft, plush velociraptor.

Today had been a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's 2 am, i did not proofread, and i wrote this in like an hour cause i wanted yall to have soft content so if it's bad i'm s o r r y but we're gonna get some paulkins next chapter, woot woot!  
> EDIT: I’m a dumbass and just realized that a whole sentence at the beginning didn’t copy over oh my god. It’s fixed now  
> please leave any comments or thoughts! I like constructive criticism (but dont be mean to me im tryin) and i LOVE hearing what you have to say! I check my email daily so i see everything and try to respond <3  
> love you!!


	3. It Needs Some Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to decorate the apartment, and what better way to do it than go shopping for supplies? And run into some familiar faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no one:  
> me when i don't want to continue a scene: ~

Lex, Ethan and Hannah checked out of their hotel early the next morning. No one was tired, not when such excitement was only minutes away! Ethan left to pull Lex’s car around while she and Hannah sat on a bench out front of the hotel.

When he drove up, he chuckled at the sight. Hannah was pulling on Lex’s shirt, seemingly asking a million questions, but Lex didn’t look like she minded. In fact, she was talking excitedly, miming big windows, curtains, furniture. She might have even been more into it than Hannah, whose eyes grew wider with each word.

They got up after seeing Ethan in the car, Lex quickly taking Hannah’s hand and leading her there.

“We’re supposed to meet with the landlord in 20 minutes, but we should be there 10 minutes early,” Lex was working out the times, “so we really need to hurry to get there soon.”

“Babe the complex is like...7 minutes away.” He pulled out onto the road, bound for their new home. “Try to calm down, ok? I know it’s a lot but it’s gonna be fine. He’s expecting us, we’ll get the key, and that’ll be it,” he reassured her.

“You’re right, you’re right. I’m just so ready for this, I don’t want anything to go wrong. I mean, for seventeen years I lived in that hellhole, and the only good thing to come from it was Hannah.” She turned to face her sister, who was staring out the window with a wide grin on her face. She continued, “and now she’s here with me, and there’s no way we’ll ever go back to that place.”

“That’s right, you won’t. You’re gonna stay right here, all of us. Promise. Besides, we already paid the down payment, there’s no going back.”

Lex, satisfied with how that sounded, leaned back in her seat and rested her eyes.

~

After an agonizing next 6 minutes, they finally pulled into the complex. They each grabbed what small luggage they had and burst through the door to the lobby. A woman with wavy brown hair greeted them. “Hi, are you new to the building?” Clearly she’d seen quite a few bunches like them.

Lex nodded her head. “Yes, yes we’re the...Green/Fosters.”  
The woman typed something onto her keyboard then made a quick call, beckoning someone to come out and see them. She hung up the phone and said “Mr. Mills will be right with you.”

Lex lightly batted Ethan’s chest with the back of her hand. “Mr. Mills! That’s the landlord I was emailing!”

Seconds later, a tall, slender man emerged from the back room. He was slightly balding on top, but despite that, his facial features and warm smile suggested he was rather young. “Hi! I’m Lionel Mills, you must be Alexandra,” he shook Lex’s hand, “Mr. Ethan Green, and oh!” He looked to the younger Foster sister. “This must be Hannah. Welcome to the building!” He handed Lex 2 keys. “One and a spare, just in case. Your apartment is 4B, so it’ll be the fourth floor, 2 down. Will you need help moving boxes?” He took a glance at the pitiful pile of luggage.

“No no,” Ethan broke in. “We’ll be just fine, thank you sir.”

~

They stepped out of the elevator into the 4th floor hallway. Hannah was especially in awe at the turquoise walls and the dark blue carpets lining the halls. It was so colorful! Certainly not what the trailer was like.

Even the front door to the apartment looked elegant. Cream colored with 6 wood panels, and a round gold door knob, and a little gold rimmed peep hole. Lex took a deep breath before inserting her key into the lock. With her free hand she grabbed Hannah’s, and Ethan rested a hand on both their shoulders. One more glance at her family, and she pushed the door open, stepping into the next chapter of their lives.

The first thing Lex saw was the kitchen. It was to the left of the entry, and, in her own words, fuckin perfect. The counters were arranged in a C shape, 3 sides with an opening facing the right. The refrigerator was on the wall up next to the door, the oven and dishwasher front and center. A large sink sat on the third counter section. There was just so much room, and the gray marble countertops made Lex feel so at home.

On the opposite side of the kitchen stood an empty space, one that would work for a dining room, probably.

Straight ahead, at the back of the apartment, was the living room. A fireplace was nestled in the back right corner but other than that it was pretty much empty. The back wall was lined with windows and a sliding glass door that led to the balcony.

Lex and Ethan’s room split off from the right side of the living room, a big, open, carpeted space with large windows looking out over the ocean. The master bathroom was laid out in wide, orangey tan tile flooring, crisp white walls, and a gold trimmed mirror adorned the space above the sink.

To the left, between the kitchen and the living room, directly across from the door to Ethan and Lex’s room, stood an archway. It led to a hallway, which branched off into 3 rooms. A bathroom, a washer and dryer unit, and of course, Hannah’s bedroom.

Aside from the bedrooms, which had soft beige carpet, the majority of the floors were dark wood or cool tile.

Hannah held on to Lex’s hand as they toured the empty apartment, and was overjoyed at seeing her bedroom. Though it had nothing in it, save for a bay window and a ceiling fan, she didn’t seem to care. It was hers, and it didn’t reek of alcohol, and it was bigger than anything she was used to.

“Hey Banana, what do you think?” Lex knelt down beside her.

“I love this place, it’s a good place!”

Ethan chimed in, “Unless we want to sleep on the floor tonight we should probably go and get some furniture. At least some mattresses, a couch, a table. Just to get us started.”

“Yeah,” Lex added. “We should paint the walls too, cause as much as white’s fun, it’s really not.”

“Okay, so, we should find an Ikea or something, right?” Although they made it this far, they still really had no idea what they were doing exactly.

“That sounds about right, come on banana!”

~

Ikea was the first of their shopping excursions for the day, and it certainly wasn’t their favorite. Immediately after walking through the doors, everything was flooded by fluorescent lights.

“Ah fuck, it’s so bright.” Ethan looked down at Hannah, who was squinting and covering her ears but otherwise seemed okay.

“Ugh, I know, let’s just find the bed stuff.”

It took an embarrassingly long time, but they navigated the aisles and finally found the bedding.

Lex dropped Hannah’s hand to read the tags. “Okay, this frame can fit a king sized bed, do we want that?”

Ethan, staring just as intently at the tags, just shrugged. “Um, maybe? How much bigger is that than a queen? It’s not that much of a price difference…”

They talked it out and decided to go for the king sized frame, and a nearby employee helped them pick out a mattress to follow. Lex turned to the kid’s bed section, ready to get Hannah one.

“Ok, banana, do you want a twin or a bunk or a loft or-” she cut herself off, panic slowly settling in her chest. “Hannah?”

Ethan rushed around the corner and peered around boxes. “Banana split? Where’d you go!”

“Shit. shit shit shit!”

“Hannah!” they yelled together.

Ethan caught the attention of the employee that helped them earlier, hoping he would remember Hannah. “Sir, sir, have you seen a little girl, she has braids, she’s wearing a yellow shirt, shorts, and a baseball hat.”

The man shook his head. “No, but I can make an announcement.” Ethan doubted it would help, Hannah tended to ignore those types of announcements, but it wouldn’t hurt.

“Thanks.”

Meanwhile, Lex circled the floor, weaving in and out of kitchen supplies and desk legs, crying out “Hannah!” She tackled Ethan when she ran back to where he was. “Anything?”

“No. No, nothing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Where could she have even gone?”

“I don’t know!” Lex rubbed at her eyes, desperately trying to deter the tears that threatened to spill over. Then, she felt something tap at her leg.

“Hi Lexie!”

“Hannah! Where were you?!”

Hannah, unfazed by Lex and Ethan’s startled faces, simply stated “the bathroom. I tried to tell you earlier but you were talking to the mattress guy so I found it myself.” she pointed to the sign labeled ‘Restroom’ right next to the mattresses. “I didn’t go that far.”

Lex breathed out a laugh and pulled her into her side. “No, I guess you didn’t.”

~

After checking out and attempting to shove the boxes in the trunk (it didn’t work out as planned and they ended up opting for same day delivery) the next stop was home depot for paint.  
Going through the paint swatches overwhelming. It was hard to figure out what colors would look good where, how it would blend with rooms, all that. Ethan thought it would be fun to pick colors at random, but after getting 3 different shades of red it wasn’t fun anymore.

Ethan and Lex decided on light blue for the living and kitchen areas, beige for the bathrooms, seafoam green for their bedroom, and Hannah chose pastel yellow for hers.

Ethan dragged the two to the wood section of the store.

“Ethan what are we doing here?”

“I just wanna get a few pieces of wood while we’re here, I’m gonna build something,” his grin told her that it was something he was excited about, but didn’t want to say for whatever reason. He carefully pulled out about 12 pieces of wood, some the same size, some not, and placed them in their cart, carefully avoiding Hannah (who was of course riding in the basket).

“Okay weirdo,” Lex snickered, “anything else?”

“No, I think that’s all we need here but we might need like fridge filters or something later-”

“Oh my god, Ethan look!” Lex cut him off excitedly, but he didn’t really mind. She pointed at a couple over at the gardening section. “Do they look familiar to you?”

Ethan glanced toward them quickly, trying not to stare. “Kind of, why?”

“It’s Mr. Houston’s sister in law he always talks about! There’s a picture of her and her boyfriend on his desk at work.”

“You pay too much attention in that class.”

“Come on!”

Before he could react, Lex grabbed his hand in her left, and pulled the cart in her right, right up to the couple.

“Excuse me,” Lex began, but the woman interrupted her, wide eyed.

“Whoa! Lex Foster!”

“You remember me?”

“Hell yeah, Tom talks about you every chance he gets, and you helped us pick out a toy for my nephew, Tim. I don’t know if you remember that but Tom was so excited about it.”

Lex tried not to show how much she was blushing. “Wait, what are you doing here?” she suddenly realized that they were both, in fact, not in Hatchetfield anymore.

“In home depot? I needed some soil-”

“No, no, in LA.”

“Oh, well Paul’s company got transferred.” She rubbed Paul’s jacket sleeve lightly. “Yeah, we got to choose either here, Washington, or Florida and this seemed like a good mix between the two. Besides, there’s a lot of land here for my pot-” Emma stopped, remembering she was talking to teenagers, and tried again “potted plants. A lot of those.”

Paul spoke up, trying to change the subject, “so what are you guys doing here? I thought Tom’s class was for juniors, did you graduate?”

Lex and Ethan shuffled awkwardly, and Ethan answered for her, “no, actually, but we wanted to leave Hatchetfield.” he looked at Hannah in the cart. “We needed to.”

An unfamiliar expression crossed Emma’s face. It was one of realization, sympathy, and understanding. Whatever these kids were going through, she knew the feeling. She pulled out her wallet.

“Well hey, listen kids, if you ever need anything you call us, okay?” she scrawled something on the back of a receipt and handed it to Lex. “That’s my number, and this…” she paused to pull out a few bills. “This is to help you out.”

“Miss,” Ethan interjected. “Thank you, but we can’t take your money.”

Emma wasn’t having it. She shook her head. “No, look. I know what it’s like to leave everything behind and start fresh, alright? It’s scary. I’m guessing you don’t know anyone in California yet, neither do we. Take it. It’s the least I can do for Tom’s favorite student.” She winked at the last part.

Lex reluctantly took the cash. She tried to not look at it in front of her, but couldn’t help it. Lex was almost in disbelief that Emma gave her a hundred dollars. “Thank you, Miss Perkins.”

“Call me Emma. Oh this is Paul, say hi Paul.”

Paul shook the teen’s hands. “Nice to see you again, Lex, and nice to meet you young man. And, um, what’s your name?” he held out a hand to Hannah, and she took it.

“I’m Hannah.” she smiled up at Paul and he smiled back.

“Um, thank you, Emma, Paul,” Lex said, “we really need to get going, we have one more stop then we need to get back home and put our things together. We will call you though, if anything happens”

Emma nodded. “Please do. Stay safe, kids.” She waved as they disappeared behind the aisle.

~

One last trip to Target for bedsheets and some furniture orders, and they were finally done for the day.

They arrived back at the apartment at 3 pm, greeted by the Ikea boxes in their living room. The landlord must have let them in.

3 pm should’ve meant that they were filled with energy and ready to work, but all Hannah wanted to do was take a nap. It made sense, it had been a long day, especially for someone her age.

“Ok banana,” Ethan told her, “we’re gonna set your mattress in your room and you can lay on that while we build the bed, okay?”

It seemed good enough for Hannah, “alright.”

Ethan and Lex unboxed her mattress and slid it into her bedroom, then tossed a blanket and a pillow on top. Hannah crawled under and shut her eyes, almost immediately falling asleep.

Ethan gently shut her door then tip toed out to the living room with Lex to work on putting together the frames.

It’s not that it was hard to follow the diagram, it was just frustrating. A lot of the wood looked the same and nothing fit quite like it should, it either needed to fit to a piece that wasn’t even there, or it was completely off centered. It eventually got to be too much, as they both flopped back on the floor and groaned.

“Why on earth does anything have to be this hard?” Lex complained. “Hey gimme that hammer.”

Ethan held it closer to him, squinting suspiciously. “Why?” 

“You see, I’m gonna bang some wood together until it looks right. Just for fun.”

“Come on, there’s gotta be something we’re not seeing.”

Lex sat up and scooted along the floor to sit closer to him, leaning against his arm. She pulled the manual closer to her so she could get a better look. When she did, she had to do a double take.

“Ethan...how long have you had it like this?”

“The whole time?”

Lex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s sideways. We were trying to do the steps out of order, that’s why they didn’t make sense.”

Flushed with embarrassment, Ethan quickly reoriented the directions. “Okay let’s start over.”

~

Everything went smoothly after the directions were turned around. They were able to get the bed frames built and push them into bedrooms, although kinda mad at themselves for not building them in the rooms.

Hannah woke up to a bed frame in the corner of her room, her walls painted yellow, and her window wide open. She scrambled off her mattress and into the living area, where Lex and Ethan were nearly done painting the walls. She noticed that all the windows were open, probably to let fresh air in and combat the fumes. Lex beamed when she saw her.

“Hey banana! You were out for a good long while, how’d you sleep?”

“Good!”

Lex dropped her paint roller back into the bucket and darted to the kitchen. “We have something for you,” she said, opening the fridge. “The neighbors stopped by while you were asleep and brought some ‘welcome to the building’ gifts, one of which being…” she paused, gripping a plate wrapped in plastic.

Hannah’s eyes grew to the size of saucers as she realized what it was. She gratefully took the plate and ripped the plastic off, revealing a decadent slice of rich red velvet cake with a thick layer of cream cheese icing spread on it. Her absolute favorite.

Lex chuckled. “I thought you’d like that. It’s not exactly the most nutritious of dinners but it’ll do until we can go shopping for groceries.” She ruffled her sister’s hair. “Go crazy, banana.”

A few minutes later, the walls were done being painted. Lex set the rollers on top of a towel on the dryer - she didn’t really know where else they could go - and returned to Ethan in the living room, where she expected him to be half asleep but instead he was hunched over something in the corner, his back to her.

“Whatcha workin’ on babe?”

“Hm?” he turned around. “Oh, you’ll see.”

She crossed the empty floor to see more clearly what he was doing, and recognized those strange wooden pieces he bought at Home Depot. They were kind of arranged in the shape of a house? It was hard to tell. 

Ethan saw her staring and gave up on the secret, too excited to hold it in any longer. “It’s a dollhouse!” He checked the kitchen to make sure Hannah wasn’t there. “For banana. I thought she’d like it.”

Lex clutched a hand to her heart. It was beating unnecessarily fast, dammit. He built her a dollhouse?

“Ethan it looks great! She’ll really love it. She loves anything from you.” She leaned down to kiss the top of his head. “It’s late, come on. Hannah’s already asleep.”

He sighed. “Is it good enough? I just think it’s a little crooked.”

“It’s perfect. She’ll love putting her dinosaur in there when she’s not playing with it.”

“I guess you’re right, maybe I can use some left over paint and decorate it tomorrow.”

“Knock yourself out, babe,” she laughed, pulling him to his feet. “It’s time for sleep.”

“You’re right, when you’re right you’re right.”

They walked hand in hand to their room.

“Night, Lexie.”

“Night, Ethan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, it's late and i didn't proofread, please forgive any stupid. I hope you liked it :)  
> also, paulkins is gonna resurface next chapter don't worry. They'll have more time in this.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, let me know what you think!! <3


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